Because there are over 750,000 self-pubbed and 250,000 books published a year and they won't all get reviews in the NYTBR. Authored by M.J. Rose

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AuthorBuzzHelp Yourself! IF NO ONE KNOWS YOUR BOOK EXISTS THEY WON'T BUY IT.
Authorbuzz.com is M.J.'s one stop book marketing solution for authors and publishers. Reach 600,000 readers (and up), leaders of more than 35,000 bookclubs, 3000 booksellers & 12,000 librarians via AuthorBuzz notes.
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We work with all the top publishers and hundreds of wonderful writers every year and do over 70% repeat business.

Interesting Tidbits and Links

Best Review I Ever Got
I used to read books like this [The Hypnotist by M.J. Rose] before I discovered smutty worlds filled with vampires and shape shifters. But this book reminded me I liked to read books like this. It even had just humans in it and I still liked it. -- Samantha at Fiction Vixen Book Reviews

April 06, 2014

If you buy The Collector of Dying Breaths (hardcover only!) between today & Thursday & email the receipt to MJRoseWriter at gmail.com - I will send you two free ebooks from my awared winning Butterfield Institute series.

"Gripping—a suspenseful and enigmatic story... Best-selling author Rose has created a captivating world...a compelling, imaginative look at one woman's intersection with history." —Kirkus

"Rose's latest venture into myth and reality is a page-turning, alluring concoction of fiction infused with fantastical yet actual history. Readers will be mesmerized by her enchanting narrative, which takes them on a mystical and magical journey." —Library Journal (Starred)

"Mysterious, magical, and mythical. What a joy to read!" —New York Times Bestseller, Sara Gruen, Water For Elephants

"With an alchemist's skill, M.J. Rose mixes present and past with the dark scent of love and an intricate mystery, creating a blend that is splendidly, spookily magical." —New York Times bestseller, Susanna Kearsley

"M.J. Rose masterfully serves up suspense with generous sides of philosophy and intrigue. A lavish and satisfying banquet of a book!" —Lynn Cullen, bestselling author of Mrs. Poe

"History, mystery, ambition, lust, love, death and the timeless quest for immortality — a riveting tale of suspense." —New York Times bestseller, B. A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

"A superb tale of two people separated by centuries yet linked by a haunting secret. Poison, obsession and undying love have never been so enticing — or so lethal." —C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

September 24, 2013

Shouldn’t success and happiness be the achievement of what we love to its own end, knowing that end might be private and personal? - Felicia Sullivan from Love,Life,Eat

This morning I came upon Felicia’s blog. Having been at the Bouchercon mystery convention this weekend, her column really hit home—I’ve just spent the last three days with hundreds of authors and was struck over and over by how many of us expressed unhappiness about our careers.

So many talked about not feeling like a “success”.

Why? I asked again and again.

There were authors who complained they get nominated for awards but never win. Others who said they often win awards, but don’t have sales. Or they get sales but no reviews. Or were upset they get reviews but no nominations for awards. Or are frustrated they are published in trade paperback instead of hardcover, or in mass market and not trade… you get the idea.

The Dali Lama said if you compare yourself to people who have more than you, you will always be unhappy. But if you compare yourself to people who have less that you, you will always be happy.

I think that’s amazing advice but I’d even go further and ask do we have to compare ourselves to anyone? Can every writer really be “big”? Does every book honestly have that potential? Is it easier for some topics and kinds of books to take off? Or win awards? Or get reviews? And what if you don’t write those kind of books?

The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It’s doing something that you appreciate, something you believe is worthwhile. I think of my strawberry soufflé. I did that at least twenty-eight times before I finally conquered it. — Julia Child

I think the most important thing we as writers can do is figure out how we define what success will mean to us and focus on that.

This weekend one writer was complimenting me on AuthorBuzz.com, my marketing company. She told me how much we’d helped her then followed up with a question. She wanted to know why, since we do such great work, I’m not a mega-name author and asked how I feel about not being a “real success.”

I was honestly surprised. I’m realistic about my career as a novelist. I’m certainly not a superstar and far far from a house hold name, but I feel successful.

From the very beginning I envisioned success as selling enough books so I could keep getting published and continue to write what I wanted to without compromising.

Did I want to be a bestseller, make millions and get amazing reviews? If you’d asked I’m sure I would have said yes, but that just wasn’t what I thought about. I was focused about having the kind of long term career that would allow me to keep writing, because writing is what saves my life each and every day.

So here I am 14 years later with my 14th novel to be published in 2014. Im published in 28 countries and I’ve sold enough copies of all those books to feel it wouldn’t be ladylike to mention the number and I’ve never comprised what I wanted to write.

Am I a success?

Are you?

Clearly it all depends on who you ask. Or maybe if you’re smart you’ll stop asking anyone and not look beyond yourself to figure it out. Because is it what anyone else thinks, or is it what you think?

As Felicia asks in her blog, do you want to be big? Or bold? Be popular or remarkable? Or all of them?

One of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, wrote: Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?

I am pretty sure no author at Bouchercon, or author reading this blog would think that worrying about meeting some arbitrary measure of success is worth spending that one life on.

"Loss, trauma and a drastic, fatal desire for control are what this novel
is really about. And, as the whole performance slowly won me over, many
of McGrath’s glorious phrases made me catch my breath. A “sort of muted
sexual uproar” was one of them. I can’t put it in context without
spoiling things for the reader. But I can’t resist quoting it either,
because it perfectly sums up the dark, ecstatic flavor of this
unforgettable book." NYT Book Review

May 19, 2013

I read this evoacative, atomospheric and compelling book - a novel about a novelist - last week while on my own book tour which was an M.C. Escherish experience.

I really enjoyed this intimate exploration of Edith Warton's sexual awaking even though at times I wasn't overly fond of Edith herself, or the choices she made. Which does make this an odd endorsement I suppose.

But the book is beautifully written and compelling. Especially fascinating for fans of Warton - since the author based so much of the story on actual letters - it was fascinating for me to learn the story of Warton's loveless marriage and the man this brilliant woman chose to fall in lust with.

“Somewhere between the repressiveness of Edith Wharton’s early-20th-century Age of Innocence and our own libertine Shades of Grey era lies the absorbingly sensuous world of Jennie Fields’s The Age of Desire . . . along with the overheated romance and the middle-age passion it so accurately describes, The Age of Desire also offers something simpler and quieter: a tribute to the enduring power of female friendship.”

May 14, 2013

I've been writing books about perfume for the last four years and am seeped in it. I expected to be either disappointed or jealous. I wasn't disappointed and I can't be jealous because the of hours of pleasure I got reading The Perfume Collector.

Even though I guessed "the secret" almost right away - it didn't matter - the characters were so engaging and the writing so lovely.

Perfume, Paris, passion, style, elegance, a certain "je ne sais quois", charm and good old fashioned storytelling along with a lump in my throat on the last page. The Perfume Collector is delightful.

Perhaps the greatest compliment I can give Tessaro is when I finished I immediately ordered one of her backlist to start tonight on my iPad.

As readers of this blog know I don't review - I just shout about a book I enjoy.

London,1955: Grace Monroe is a very fortunate young
woman. In spite of a sheltered upbringing in Oxford, her recent marriage
has thrust her into the heart of London’s most refined and ambitious
social circles, where alliances are formed and reputations made.
However, playing the role of the sophisticated socialite her husband
would like her to be doesn’t come naturally to her - and perhaps never
will.

Then one evening, a letter arrives from a law
firm in Paris. Grace has received an unanticipated inheritance. Only her
benefactor, Frenchwoman Eva d’Orsey, is a complete stranger to her.
Grace dismisses it as a mistake. However, when later that same night,
she suddenly suspects her husband of infidelity, her world is thrown
into chaos.

Fleeing London for Paris, Grace searching for
information about the mysterious Eva d’Orsey. What she uncovers is the
remarkable history of an unconventional woman who inspired one of
Paris’s greatest perfumers. Only Eva’s past and Grace’s future
intersect. And soon Grace must chose between the life she thinks she
ought to live or becoming the person she truly is.

Told in three distinctive perfumes, the story
weaves through the decades, from 1920’s New York to Monte Carlo, Paris
and London; revealing the complex, obsessive love between muse and
artist and the tremendous power of memory and scent.

May 13, 2013

May 07, 2013

I've been reading David Morrell for years. Amazed most I think by how masterful every book is. How intelligent but at the same time fast paces. How smart he is but how he never makes you stop to notice it. And how he keeps reinventing himself as an author - taking on every kind of suspense novel - and doing it as well as anyone ever has.

Now he's taken on historical suspense and you will swear that he must have used a time travel machine to write Murder As a Fine Art. You will be in gaslit London... you will smell the filth.. you will walk the dark streets... you will be scared and horrified and your heart will beat faster and you will know when you are finished with this astonishing novel that you have truly been in the hands of one of our era's most brilliant masters of the genre.

I don't review books - but I do hand yell (my version of a booksellers "hand sell"). If you love historical suspense - you will be enthralled! Truly! (All the buy links are here)

Publishers Weekly calls Murder as a Fine Art a
“brilliant crime thriller. . . . Everything works–the horrifying
depiction of the murders, the asides explaining the impact of train
travel on English society, nail-biting action sequences–making this book
an epitome of the intelligent page-turner.”

Chosen as one of PW’s 10 Best Summer Mystery/Thrillers of 2013!

Here's the flap copy:

The Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 were the most notorious mass
killings in their day. Never fully explained, they brought London and
all of England to the verge of panic.

Forty-three years later, the equally notorious Thomas De Quincey returns to London. Along with his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, he is infamous for a scandalous essay about the killings: “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.”

Days after his arrival, a family is killed in the same horrific way
as the earlier murders. It seems someone is using the essay as an
inspiration—and a blueprint. And De Quincey himself is the obvious
suspect. Aided by his brilliant daughter Emily and two determined
Scotland Yard detectives, he must uncover the truth before more blood is
shed and London itself becomes the next victim.

In Murder as a Fine Art, gaslit London becomes a battleground
between a literary star and a demented murderer. Their lives are linked
by secrets long buried but never forgotten.

May 05, 2013

When Seduction comes out on Tuesday, readers who buy the hardcover and open it will find, what I hope, will be a surprise.

The endpapers (see below) show my hand written manuscript of the book along with the pen and the ink I wrote it with.

Why did I write 122,833 words in ink?

I love challenges, but to tell the
story of Victor Hugo’s experiments with séances in his own voice? What kind of
crazy idea had I come up with? Surely it was lunacy to even attempt it.

I don’t have literary illusions. I
had just fallen in love with Hugo’s story and wanted to tell it. What
fascinated me was how much had been written about his life as a statesman, poet
and author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame
and Les Misérables, but how little
had been written about a certain part of his personal life: his dabbling with
hashish, his preoccupation with reincarnation and the more than100 séances he’d
conducted during a two year period while he lived on the Isle of Jersey.

During my research, I hadn’t once
stopped to think that in order to tell the story of Hugo’s seduction by the
spirit world, I would have to find his voice.

But there I was. Finally ready to
write, sitting at a computer in a very 21st century world trying to
conjure a mid 19th genius. For weeks I was stumped.

Then I had a revelation. I didn’t
need to invoke the genius, just the man. I had read Hugo’s letters. I knew that
the eloquence and brilliance of his poetry and prose didn’t always exhibit
itself when he was writing to people close to him. Sometimes he was an
extraordinary man saying ordinary things to his family.

That was the Hugo I needed to find
try to find. The one who was relating a tale to an intimate. Not writing for
the ages. Not trying to be brilliant – just attempting to reason out an unreasonable
time in his life that had disturbed him.

But I still couldn’t do it. The
cold keyboard, the sound of the mechanical clicking, the icons at the top of
the page, the spell check. All of it was a gulf between me and the man I needed
to channel. I decided it was hubris to even attempt to write this novel. Absurd
to try. And yet, I couldn’t give up.

Carl Jung said that often coincidences
aren’t coincidences at all.

One day in fit of frustration I got
up from my desk in a huff and managed to
tip over a jar of pens. One was an old fountain pen. It rolled and fell
on the computer. I stared at it for a moment.

What if…

I found a bottle of ink. Filled the
pen. Then pulled out a simple notebook and started to write. Not the way I write, on a computer, but the way
Victor Hugo would have written over one hundred and fifty years ago. Pen on paper.
I began. And as the ink flowed… the words flowed.

I don’t remember writing this book.
Each day when I sat down and uncapped my pen I disappeared into the world of the
novel. Three notebooks and 122,833 words later, I finished Seduction.

Seduction
is the first novel I’ve written by hand. Perhaps the last. Definitely one of
the most fascinating journeys I’ve ever taken.

By M.J. Rose

M. J. Rose: The Collector of Dying Breaths: A Novel of Suspense
Indie Next Pick Amazon Best of April Mystery/Suspense
"Gripping--a suspenseful and enigmatic story... captivating... compelling, imaginative." (Kirkus)
"A page-turning, alluring concoction of fiction infused with fantastical yet actual history. Readers will be mesmerized by her enchanting narrative, which takes them on a mystical and magical journey." (Library Journal - Starred
"Rose masterfully combines romance, mystery, and dual timelines…The storyline and extensive historical details…are fascinating.” (Romantic Times TOP PICK))
"Mysterious, magical, and mythical…what a joy to read!" (Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of Water for Elephants)

M. J. Rose: Seduction: A Novel of SuspenseIndie Next List.
Intriguing, absorbing, and utterly captivating, Seduction will leave you begging for a sequel." —Books & Books
"Mysterious, haunting, and tragic, Seduction emerges as a suspenseful alchemy of potent ingredients, beautifully blended, that ignites your senses and leaves you aching for more." (Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet )
"Seduction is an absolute pleasure to read -- clever, suspenseful, exciting, mysterious, learned, and engrossing. Some of the best historical fiction I've read in quite some time and just plain reading fun. M.J. Rose is at the top of her game, and that is saying something." (David Liss, bestselling author of The Twelfth Enchantment )

M. J. Rose: The Book of Lost Fragrances: A Novel of SuspenseINDIE NEXT PICK
SUSPENSE Best of 2012
PW Best of Mystery/Suspense Spring 2012
"Deliciously sensual...Rose imbues her characters with rich internal lives in a complex plot that races to a satisfying finish." (Publisher's Weekly (starred and boxed)
"Compelling... suspenseful tale. Once you catch a whiff, you will be enchanted". - Associated Press
"Rose has entered another realm and written what is bound to be one of this year's best books." -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"The Book of Lost Fragrances by M.J. Rose is an amazing novel, an utterly engrossing thriller that weaves together reincarnation, ancient Egypt, international intrigue, and a lost book of fragrances. Elegantly written, with unforgettable characters and flawlessly realized international settings, here is a novel that will keep you up all night—and leave you with powerful feelings of revelation, wonder, and the infinitude of human possibility." —New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston

Seen on FOXTV as PAST LIFE : The Reincarnationist THE REINCARNATIONIST. Starred Library Journal Review. Starred Publisher's Weekly Review. Booksense Pick for September and 2007 Highlight List.
"A fascinating story of reincarnation that is one of the year's most ambitious and entertaining thrillers." - David Montgomery - Chicago Sun-Times

People Magazine Pick of the Week : The Memorist "Gripping… Rose once again skillfully blends past and present with a new set of absorbing characters in a fascinating historical locale." - Starred Review, Library Journal ------------------------------
"Rose's fascinating follow up to The Reincarnationist... skillfully blends past life mysteries with present day chills. The result is a smashing good read." -Starred Review, Publisher's Weekly